BENNY DRÖSCHER (DK): “A STRONG PRESENCE BENEATH THE TREES”
MOGADISHNI CPH is proud to present the second solo exhibition in the gallery by Danish artist Benny Dröscher.
Dröscher is well-known for his sculptural expressions, but for the first time he solely presents paintings. The new works are centred around curious floating spaces with tilting perspectives. Recurrent elements from the natural world in Dröscher’s paintings are big pine trees, moonlit lakes, butterflies, birds and circular forms in combination with seemingly coincidental looking colour formations. Put together these elements – which are placed on the surface like objects in a spatial room – form carefully composed meetings between the figurative and the abstract. The circular form and the circular movement in the compositions keep everything floating in the paintings, and an almost romantic spherical feeling is created leaving the viewer in a state of meditation and daydreaming. There is no clear-cut narrative in the paintings, merely established conditions of wonderment and spiritual investigations. The spectator is offered a glimpse of a metaphysical dimension, into another world where things float in a weightless condition. With a free fall of vivid associations. ”A STRONG PRESENCE BENEATH THE TREES” invites you to participate in a beautiful daydream.
Benny Dröscher has recently had a solo exhibition in the London-based gallery Rokeby and will in the coming year have solo exhibitions abroad in Bergen Kunsthall, Norway and in Blindarte contemporanea, Naples, Italy among others. MOGADISHNI will be showing paintings by Dröscher at Zoo art fair, London and Pulse art fair, Miami.
Benny Dröscher will be present at the opening.
BENJI WHALEN (US): “CLAUSTROTOPIA”
MOGADISHNI CPH is furthermore proud to present the second solo exhibition in the gallery by America artist Benji Whalen who will be showing a wide spectrum of his artistic expressions. The works presented in the exhibition will be his well-known stuffed fabric arms embroidered with colourful tattoo imagery, polymer clay sculptures, watercolour and oil paintings plus a sculpture of stuffed fabric and clothing. Whalen’s work often fuses the feminine and the masculine. In his art he points to a so called “female tradition” but by fusing this with an aggressive imagery it forms a clash in the viewers mind between the soft and the hard – and therefore his works surprisingly infuse the traditional feminine craft of needlepoint with an attitude of bold machismo. The soft sculptures of arms also pose an identity question to the viewer about its absent owner and one can invent a suitable identity for this hidden character.
The new clay and fabric sculptures are absurd piles of human beings in fights with body parts sticking out. We both crave and fear the company of others, as the exhibition title CLAUSTROTOPIA suggests. The entangled bodies in the sculptures are physically close to such a degree that it borders on claustrophobia and causes aggression, and the notion of togetherness and peaceful coexistence therefore becomes a utopia. As always in Whalen’s work, optimism and pessimism, faith and dejection, adoration and disgust, and most importantly humour and sadness are always simultaneously present.
Later this year Benji Whalen will participate in a group exhibition called “Pricked: extreme embroidery” at the Museum of Arts & Design in New York.